New book: Theoretical linguistics

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Person prominence and relation prominence

On the typology of syntactic relations with special reference to Yucatec
Maya

Christian Lehmann, Yong-Min Shin,  & Elisabeth Verhoeven


Two types of syntactic structures are postulated, one of person
prominence, which is present in Standard Average European (SAE)
languages, following Benjamin L. Whorf's term, and one of relation
prominence, which is present in Yucatec Maya. The diverse structural
manifestations of the two types and their implications for the
organization of grammar are explored within eight mostly unrelated
languages, English, German, Korean, Lezgian, Maori, Samoan, Tamil, and
Yucatec Maya. The syntactic organization in different grammatical areas,
namely modal and phase operator constructions, possessive constructions,
experiential constructions, and benefactive constructions, is
investigated and the languages are arranged on a continuum of person and
relation prominence.

The study is intended for typologists, descriptive linguists and
mayanists, but may as well be of interest to philologists of any of the
other languages.

Christian Lehmann is professor for general and comparative linguistics
at the University of Erfurt. He mainly attends to the study of language
typology and the description of Yucatec Maya. Yong-Min Shin is writing
his dissertation thesis on 'Possessive and participant relations in
German and Korean' at the University of Bielefeld. Elisabeth Verhoeven
is writing her thesis on 'Experiencer constructions in Yucatec Maya' at
the same University.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical background
2.1. The cognitive structure of a situation
2.1.1. Situation, situation core, and participants
2.1.2. Participant features
2.1.3. Participant roles
2.2. Syntactic functions
2.3. Correlation between syntactic functions and participant roles

3. Prominence in typology
3.1. Subject prominence vs. topic prominence
3.2. Reference domination vs. role domination
3.3. Person prominence vs. relation prominence

4. Languages investigated
4.1. Yucatec Maya
4.2. Samoan
4.3. Maori
4.4. Tamil
4.5. Lezgian
4.6. Korean

5. Prominence in syntactic constructions
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Higher predicates
5.2.1. Modal predicates
5.2.2. Phase predicates
5.2.3. Tense, aspect, and aktionsart auxiliaries
5.3. Possessive constructions
5.3.1. Part-whole relations
5.3.2. Ascription of possession
5.3.3. Predication of belonging
5.3.4. Ascription of property to body part
5.3.5. Affection of possessor
5.4. Mental, sensual, and emotional states and processes
5.4.1. Preliminaries
5.4.2. Sensual states and processes
5.4.3. Emotional states and processes
5.4.4. Mental states and processes
5.4.5. Conclusion
5.5. Benefactive

6. Relation prominence in YM: a historical-comparative perspective
6.1. Colonial Yucatec Maya
6.1.1. Preliminaries
6.1.2. Modal predicates
6.1.3. Phase predicates
6.1.4. Aspect auxiliaries
6.1.5. Conclusion
6.2. Cognate languages
6.2.1. Preliminaries
6.2.2. Higher predicates
6.2.3. Possessive constructions
6.2.4. Mental, sensual and emotional states and processes
6.2.5. Benefactive
6.2.6. Conclusion

7. Typology
7.1. Empirical generalizations
7.1.1. The domain of possession
7.1.2. Higher predicates
7.1.3. Participant roles
7.2. Grammatical correlations
7.3. Conclusion

Indices
Abbreviations
Morpheme glosses & syntactic categories
Languages
Sources of data
Bibliographical references

ISBN 3 89586 608 3.
LINCOM Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 17.
Ca. 180pp. EUR 34.77 / USD 44 / DM 68 / # 25.


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